"Once an attack is perfected, the sword will no longer be a sword but a tool to use a sword," Apollo muttered. Although it was confusing at first, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He couldn't put it into words, but somehow, he understood it. An understanding that only he could grasp.
Vertical Slash, Horizontal Slash, Diagonal Slash, Stab, Block, Deflect, Disarm… Apollo recalled all the moves from the Simple Sword Technique and the training method to perfect them. All he had to do was keep practicing, which he did with the Vertical Slash. But isn't it too fast to perfect it?
Maybe because the sword technique is really simple.
Compared to the eye-catching techniques the martial students could do, his technique was simply child's play.
But if my Horizontal Slash is already perfect, how come it doesn't produce much strength? He looked around and saw the scarecrows that could measure strength. There was a martial student testing his strength on one with a sword in hand.
The scarecrow could also act as a training dummy? This made Apollo want to test out his sword technique on it. Although he wasn't expecting much, he should at least know the strength of his attack. But the beggar decided to perfect every sword attack first.
Holding the wooden sword with both hands, he sliced horizontally. The sword created a whistling sound and sent airwaves in front of him. Just like with the Vertical Slash, he kept practicing the attack, again and again, until he lost track of time.
As his breathing grew heavy and sweat covered his forehead, with one final slash, the Horizontal Slash finally became silent and 'uneventful.'
Apollo wiped his sweat with his sleeves. He rested for a bit before trying the Horizontal Slash again. Just like what happened with the Vertical Slash, the sword attack became nothing but a simple swing.
Still, Apollo didn't underestimate the technique, as he still didn't know if there was something else. After resting for a bit, he took a deep breath to calm his heavy breathing before practicing the Diagonal Slash this time.
The sound of air being sliced echoed, but because there were martial students in the training ground also practicing their techniques, the sound coming from the beggar was drowned out.
There was only one particular person observing him.
"What's wrong with this kid?" Sir Guo muttered in confusion. He already knew that the kid was hiding something. That kid Yoma is a beggar, according to the martial student Bernie, but can a beggar defeat a Cultivator who has undergone training and studied in a Martial School? Highly unlikely.
This kid… or man? "A wanderer?" Sir Guo muttered. A wanderer seemed the most plausible explanation, but… what the hell was a wanderer like him doing? He watched Yoma swing his sword like how military men train. Although the strength behind it was something that only comes from a 4th-Step Foundation Building Cultivator, his technique was just a simple sword slash. No fancy special effects whatsoever.
If Yoma is a Wanderer acting like a beggar, why is he also acting like a fool? This confused Sir Guo.
Wanderers, or sometimes called Rogue Cultivators, are those Cultivators who don't belong to any association or organization. They cultivate alone with their Cultivation techniques that they got from relics, passed down from their family, Martial Schools, or from other ways.
Sir Guo had met some Wanderers and even made friends with them, but he had never met someone this young. It was impossible for a kid to have reached the 4th-Step Foundation Building, and Sir Guo couldn't detect Qi inside the boy.
So there was only one explanation he could conclude at the moment. This 'kid' was actually a grown-up man.
"You're a grown *ss man and acting ?" Sir Guo muttered while shaking his head. "What a shame."
After perfecting the diagonal slash, Apollo moved on to perfect the other slashes. Each attacking method took him at least 30 minutes to complete, and the longest took him an hour, which was the stabbing attack. However, he couldn't proceed to perfect the block, deflect, and disarm techniques as he didn't have a sparring partner.
Apollo raised his wooden sword and brought it down. Then he followed up by slicing the air horizontally before doing the diagonal slash and the stab. Each attack was so simple one might think it couldn't even kill a chicken.
Apollo sighed. He was also skeptical about all this. But he still believed in the Simple Sword Technique that came from the System Store. Even the Simple Breathing Technique was such a godly technique that it made him a super genius. At 7 years old, he was already at the 4th-Step Foundation Building stage while his peers were still training their bodies to be able to cultivate.
But unbeknownst to him, the Simple Sword Technique and the Simple Breathing Technique were actually what their names implied. They were just really simple techniques.
Apollo's once-in-a-million-years talent made him cultivate faster than anyone else, even though he was just using the Simple Breathing Technique. This also applied to the Simple Sword Technique. It was a Sword Technique worth 25 Alm points that only consisted of the basics of every sword technique.
The beggar immediately perfected it and unknowingly went beyond it, making the Simple Sword Technique his own creation.
This was the main reason he reigned on top of his previous world. But the beggar didn't know this.
Apollo raised the wooden sword in front of him, recalling the details of the Simple Sword Technique. He suddenly felt like there was more to the technique than what was inside his mind.
"Anyway, it's time to test out the strength!" Apollo muttered in excitement. He glanced in the direction of the scarecrows and found no one was using the training dummy. In fact, he was the only one left here.
Apollo smiled bitterly. Even that creepy man had left already.
He looked at the position of the moon and stars and concluded that the time must be between 9 and 10. Although the sky above was different from his previous life, after looking at it every night, Apollo could somehow manage to tell the time.
Shaking his head, he walked towards the nearest scarecrow.
Upon standing in front of it, Apollo raised the wooden sword in front of him.
"The sword will no longer be a sword but a tool to use a sword," Apollo muttered. Although this came from the Simple Sword Technique, the more he repeated it, the more he felt that these were his own words.
While still in doubt, Apollo brought down the wooden sword.
He felt a slight resistance before the trajectory of his sword became smooth. After the swing, Apollo observed the scarecrow before he turned to the vertical stone beside it. The water level didn't change.
"What a crappy technique," Apollo said in annoyance. "It's definitely not a sword anymore, it turned into nothing but a toy that couldn't even produce much strength! Heck! Even a toy could hurt someone!"
Feeling disappointed and angry at the System that scammed him out of 25 Alm points, he thought, F*ck you, System!
He was about to hit the scarecrow out of frustration when suddenly, it fell to the ground, split on both sides.